Consumers are increasingly using kiosks to conduct business with enterprises. The kiosks come in a variety of sizes and are used for a variety of purposes. Some kiosks are drive through, such as fast food establishments, pharmacies, banks, and the like. Other kiosks are stationary located in gas stations, grocery stores, department stores, and the like.
Store kiosks were originally created to alleviate the need for excessive store personnel to check out the customers from stores. For the most part this worked and stores reduced the number of costly cashiers employed by the stores. However, more often than not, the bottleneck in stores may be at self-checkout kiosks. While customers attempt to use them properly, store personnel are often needed to assist the customers in using them. Meanwhile, full service checkout lanes are diminishing from the stores in greater numbers.
In short, self-checkout kiosks are the victim of their own success because the popularity has been so well received the traditional model and the self-checkout kiosks may become a bottleneck in stores during heavy customer demand periods.